http://democracynow.org-
In March, WikiLeaks launched a searchable archive for over 30,000
emails & email attachments sent to and from Hillary Clinton’s
private email server while she was secretary of state. The 50,000
pages of documents span from June 2010 to August 2014; 7,500 of the
documents were sent by Hillary Clinton. The State Department released
the emails as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request.

Democracy Now! headlines

Snowden
Scoffs at Accusations of Russian Hand in US Democrats' Scandal

In
an all-too familiar tactic shared by the US political right and left
alike, the Democratic Party has blamed the WikiLeaks release of
internal emails on Russia. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, however,
isn’t convinced.

Over
the weekend, WikiLeaks released a cache of some 20,000 emails
from high-ranking members within the Democratic National
Committee (DNC). The correspondence has embarrassed party elites,
showing an obvious bias against Clinton’s primary opponent
Bernie Sanders. The revelations have already forced DNC chair Debbie
Wasserman Schultz to step down.

Rather
than discuss the content of the emails, the DNC has instead
launched a smear campaign against WikiLeaks, and alleged that
the organization received the information from hackers hired
by the Russian government.

These
claims were made without any evidence, and few seem convinced.
Among the skeptics is NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, who points
out in a series of tweets that if there was any evidence
of Russian involvement, it would be easy to deduce.

To summarize: the US Intel Community should modernize their position on disclosure. Defensive capabilities should be aggressively public.

465 retweets967 likes

Blaming
Russia for various embarrassments has been a favorite Western
tactic for decades, but recent months have seen a dramatic
uptick in the policy. In the lead-up to last month’s Brexit
referendum,
former UK Prime Minister David Cameron suggested that Russian
President Vladimir Putin had a vested interest in the result.

"It
is worth asking the question: who would be happy if we left [the EU]?
Putin might be happy. I suspect [Daesh leader] al-Baghdadi would be
happy," he said.

Putin
dismissed the allegations.

"Statements
made by the UK prime minister, Mr. Cameron, before this
plebiscite, before this referendum, on Russia’s stance,
have no basis and never had," the Russian president said. "I
believe that this is nothing more than a flawed attempt
to influence the public opinion in his own country."

Western
pundits have also attempted to blame Moscow for the rise
of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. These claims
are based largely on the fact that the billionaire has noted
that he respects the Russian president as a leader, and would
seek to improve relations between the two countries.

"It’s
no secret that the 'demonization of Russia' and all that is
connected with Russia, unfortunately, is an essential feature
of the US election campaign," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry
Peskov said in March. "We always deeply regret it and wish
electoral processes would do without such references to our
country."

WikiLeaks
founder Julian Assange has also come under attack for the
fresh email leak, criticized for focusing on Democrats. But
in an interview with Democracy Now, Assange made clear that
he has little appreciation for either major US presidential
candidate.

"Well,
you’re asking me, do I prefer cholera or gonorrhea?" he said.
"Personally, I would prefer neither."

WikiLeaks
founder Julian Assange says his next leak will virtually guarantee
an indictment of Hillary Clinton.

In
a recent
interview with ITV,
Assange said the whistleblowing website will soon be leaking
documents that will provide “enough evidence” for the Department
of Justice to indict the presumptive Democratic nominee. WikiLeaks
has already published
30,322 emails from
Clinton’s private email server, spanning from June 30, 2010 to
August 12, 2014. While Assange didn’t specify what exactly was in
the emails, he did tell ITV that WikiLeaks had “accumulated a lot
of material about Hillary Clinton, which could proceed to an
indictment.”

Assange
hinted that the emails slated for publication contain additional
information about the Clinton Foundation. He also reminded ITV’s
Robert Peston that previously released emails contained one damning
piece of communication from Clinton, instructing a staffer to remove
the classification settings from an official State Department
communication and send
it through a “nonsecure” channel.
Assange then pointed out that the Obama administration
has previously
prosecuted numerous whistleblowers for
violating the government’s procedures for handling classified
documents.

In
regard to the ongoing FBI investigation, however, Assange expressed
a lack of confidence in the Obama administration’s Justice
Department to indict the former Secretary of State.

“[Attorney
General Loretta Lynch] is not going to indict Hillary Clinton. It’s
not possible that could happen. But the FBI could push for new
concessions from the Clinton government in exchange for its lack of
indictment.”

WikiLeaks
has long been a thorn in the side of the former Secretary of State,
who called
on President Obama to
prosecute the whistleblowing site after its 2010 leak of State
Department cables. Julian Assange remains confined to the Ecuadorian
Embassy in downtown London, as Ecuador has promised to not hand over
the WikiLeaks founder to US authorities.